all my nightmares escaped my head
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: "Astoria?" "Who the hell is Astoria?" :: The Winter Soldier AU nobody asked for.


Written for the HPHG: (word) ruthless, (emotion) fear, (dialogue) "Are you going to kill me?", (pairing) AstoriaGinny, (genre) tragedy, (AU) serial killer.

... I'm very sorry about this.

* * *

 _ **all my nightmares escaped my head**_

The last thing Ginny expects when she wakes up is to find Harry in her apartment, sitting at the kitchen table and nursing a fuming cup of tea.

Well, maybe not the last thing — they do share the place, after all. Considering how late in the morning it is, though — closer to lunchtime than breakfast time — it is pretty far down her list.

"Shouldn't you be at work? Catching Dark Lords, saving the world and all that?" Ginny asks teasingly, deftly picking Harry's cup off his hands — hm, earl grey, her favorite.

She sits down across from him, letting the tea wake her up properly. As she does so, she studies her friend.

Something is wrong. It becomes clear almost immediately — Harry is too quiet, too somber for this to be a nice surprise. Not that they ever get nice surprises.

The tea turns sour in her mouth and she forces the rest of the cup down, even though it scalds her tongue.

"I am at work," Harry replies, and Ginny's stomach twists as Harry's words confirm her fears.

"What happened?" she asks through a tight throat. Her mind flashes to the faces of the people she loves, to her family — merlin, she can't bear to lose anyone else, not now, not ever.

Not again.

Harry grimaces as he pulls out a file from somewhere, displaying grim pictures over the counter.

Ginny tastes bile — she knows the people on these pictures. She's worked with them.

"What happened?" she repeats, her fingers trembling as they hover above the pictures.

"Officially, we don't know."

Ginny raises a pointed eyebrow. "And unofficially?"

Harry huffs a humorless laugh. "You know, one day that's not going to work on me anymore. Or it'll get me fired."

"Pff, as though anybody would ever fire the 'Man-Who-Conquered'." Ginny scoffs while Harry winces at the name.

"Be that as it may, I shouldn't be telling you this." He sighs. "We have reason to believe that someone is targeting you."

Ginny's mouth runs dry. "Is this about…?"

"The trials you and Hermione have been pushing for? Yeah." Harry nods, grimacing.

"And they're…" Ginny waves at the pictures — she can't even get the words out.

"Dead," Harry replies grimly. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Ginny sighs. She feels sick — she knew these women. For the most part, she even was the one to approach them.

"We promised them they'd be safe," she says softly.

"I'm sorry," Harry repeats.

"I know you are." She sighs again and runs a hand through her messy hair. "So now what? You're what, my bodyguard?"

Harry's silence tells it all.

Ginny gapes. "No fucking way! I don't need a babysitter, Potter, I don't need your protection. I thought we'd been through this already!" Her eyes narrow in her fury, and her fingers itch for her wand. She's betting a couple well-placed curses would dissuade Harry from whatever ill-gotten hero complex he's got now — it had worked when they'd been dating, after all.

But Harry snorts, raising his hands in defense. "Trust me, I know. If it were up to me... "

And suddenly, Ginny understands. She scowls. "Kingsley or Mum?"

"Both," Harry replies, his shoulders dropping.

She'd laugh, except that Ginny's been subject to that particular combo before, and it is not fun.

"You know, one day they'll get that we're adults too."

Harry snorts. "So you're not going to go after whoever killed those girls and put a hit on you?"

Ginny arches an eyebrow — the hit is news, though she's not surprised — but she smiles sunnily. "Of course I am. And you are too — why do you think you were assigned to me? Come on, Potter, crime waits for nobody."

.

That night, Ginny dreams about Astoria. She expected to, really — it's that time of the year again, and this case, these women…

She can't help but wonder if Astoria had felt like they had too, before she…

Before she…

 _(The light flashes before her eyes whenever she thinks about it, again and again, Astoria screaming at Ginny to run, to save herself as the Death Eaters poured into their home._

 _Voldemort was ten years dead, this was supposed to be over, and yet…_

 _And yet some people didn't like the idea of a Greengrass falling in love with a Weasley._

 _That night, Ginny escapes — she'll never be able to play Quidditch professionally again, but that's fine. She doesn't want to anymore. Not when there are more important fights for her to win._

 _That night, Ginny escapes._

 _Astoria doesn't, and the house blows up around her — they never find a body, and have to bury an empty casket. When Ginny catches her girlfriend's killers and puts them in Azkaban, it doesn't help._

 _It doesn't help at all.)_

It's funny, really, but Ginny doesn't have nightmares about Astoria. When she sleeps, she always only remembers the good parts — how Astoria always liked to sneak half of Ginny's ice-cream when they went on a date, how she squealed when Ginny pressed her cold feet against her back…

How her skin felt, pressed closed to GInny's…

She always wishes those dreams could last longer, but always, always, day beacons her and she has to wake to a bed devoid of the one she truly wants there.

.

The case is simple, really. Or it had started that way, at least.

Ginny had been investigating the death of a prostitute when she'd stumbled onto something much darker, and perhaps, a chance to take a newly rising group of pureblood supremacists through the girls they took to bed.

Ginny had promised them safety and protection in exchange for their testimonies, a deal she'd worked on with Hermione until it was as solid as it could be.

And yet, it's all been for nothing.

"Still nothing, huh?"

Ginny scowls, accepting the tea Harry floats into her head as she keeps glaring at the pictures spread over their kitchen tables.

"No. It's been days, Harry, something should have happened by now, we should have found something. But instead we still have the same big dump of nothing!"

She grits her teeth, clenching her toes in anger. When she blows on her tea, it's too strong and scalding drops scatter on her hand, causing her to hiss. It doesn't help her get a hand on her temper, and she growls in frustration.

"Well…" Harry starts, and Ginny snaps her head up to him.

"What?"

Harry's frowning — it's never a good sign, but right now, Ginny will take anything.

There are seven women dead. Seven women she became an Auror to protect, seven women she failed. If she can't even avenge them, what good is she?

"What is it?" she repeats, insistent.

Harry sighs. "It's not much," he cautions, but Ginny doesn't care. 'Not much' is better than 'nothing'.

"Well?"

"Draco reckons the killer is the same person for each one."

It takes a moment for the notion to register. Ginny's eyes fall back to the pictures — she doesn't need to look at them. She knows every detail in those pictures, knows every curse that was cast on the women, knows how much pain they were in when they died.

She needs the reminder though, it keeps her focused.

(When she presses her eyes closed for a moment, Astoria's face flashes through her mind, an imprint on the back of her eyelids.)

Her hands falter and her cup shakes in her hands. Luckily, it's empty now, but the ringing noise the china makes echoes loudly in the room.

"'Draco', huh?" Ginny teases, nervously setting the cup down on the table.

Harry's cheeks darken as he glares at her. "Shut up. We're coworkers, it's normal to use his first name."

"I still call him Malfoy. Ron still calls him Malfoy — hell, I think most of the Department calls him Malfoy. You're pretty much the only one to call him 'Draco'."

"We're friends, okay? Just friends."

Ginny snorts. "Right. Save the 'just friends' thing for somebody who hasn't seen you drunk in the last year. You're thirsty."

"I hate you," Harry replies, his cheeks a burning red. "I'm just… taking it slow. We don't have the best history, you know."

"Oh, I know." Ginny snorts again. 'Not the best history' is definitely an understatement, possibly the biggest she's ever heard. Harry's current crush on the DMLE's foremost magical legist is an unending source of amusement for her though — especially since her brother is too much of a coward to take advantage of it.

(Ginny suspects it's because that'd mean Ron would have to re-examine Harry and Malfoy's interactions back at Hogwarts, and her brother really isn't keen on that. Hermione, on the other hand, has already placed her bet — sometimes Ginny really loves her brother's wife.)

Ginny hadn't exactly had the best history with Astoria either when they had first started dating though. Nothing quite as bad as Harry and Malfoy's famous rivalry, but… Astoria had been a stuck up pureblood Slytherin for quite a few years back in Hogwarts before she'd wisen up and decided to do something about the Carrows' reign of terror.

To this day, Ginny's still not sure they would have made it as well as they had if not for the information Astoria had delivered the DA.

She sighs, fondly shaking of the memories.

"You know," Ginny says, her eyes falling back to her empty teacup and the scattered tea leaves at the bottom of it, "if you like him, you should just… take the chance. You've been circling each other for long enough, don't you think? Trust me… If you have a chance for happiness, you should seize it now." You never know when it might slip right through your fingers.

Ginny falls silent, her voice stuck in her throat. Her eyes prickle and she blinks rapidly a few times to chase the tears away.

She's cried enough tears over Astoria. Adding more won't help anyone.

She clears her throat. "Anyway. You were saying Malfoy thought the killer was the same person?"

Harry eyes her in concern for a few moments before sighing. "Yeah. He said —" and here, funnily enough, Harry's voice changes, taking on Malfoy's more refined cadence of speaking "— that the curses used and the placement of the wounds inflicted on the bodies was consistent with a single assailant. Highly-skilled, highly-trained in the Dark Arts, and very methodical."

"And that's all?" Ginny can't quite hide her disbelief, but she feels it's justified. Malfoy's the best at his job — Ginny isn't afraid to admit it, even though it only fuels Malfoy's ego — and he usually gets better results.

Harry bristles defensively. "It's more than we had before," he says.

"Well, you did say it wasn't much, I guess." She sighs tiredly. "Damn it! And he really didn't have anything else?"

Harry shakes his head. "No. Whoever did this is good, Ginny — they left no trace of themselves, not even a magical signature we could trace."

Despite herself and the horror of the situation, Ginny is grudgingly impressed. Erasing magical signatures, especially after crimes so magically violent as these, takes effort.

A lot of effort.

Ginny leans forward, staring at the pictures intently again.

"You've thought of something," Harry states, and Ginny can hear the excitement in his voice.

"I… Maybe. It's just… Erasing a magical signature is busy work. It takes time. If they did it that well… It would have taken a lot of time."

Harry's eyes widen. "Time they wouldn't necessarily have after such a crime!"

Ginny nods eagerly. "Exactly. So either they committed the crime somewhere else, somewhere they had prepped in advance —" unlikely, but not altogether impossible "— or —"

"They have a, a talisman they're using to delete the signatures for them!"

"Yes!" Ginny finishes feverishly. "And if they did, maybe we can track that. There's got to be a way, isn't there?"

Harry stays silent for a short beat, but finally, he nods. His green eyes shine like emeralds. "We'll need to ask an Unspeakable for a list of contacts and ingredients," he says, but it's not a no.

It's not a no.

Ginny grins savagely. "Lucky we know someone then, isn't it?"

Harry grins back, just as wild and determined.

They have a lead. It's tenuous at best, but it's something.

They've done more with less.

.

To most of the world at large, Luna Scamander née Lovegood is a part-time journalist, part-time adventurer who's always on the lookout for the craziest of conspiracies theories.

And she is.

She's also a full-time Unspeakable — don't ask Ginny how it works, because she has no idea. Technically, neither she nor Harry are supposed to know Luna even is an Unspeakable, but well.

It's Luna. When have rules ever stopped her from doing anything?

She hums a little at their request, but Ginny can see how her friend's eyes sparkle with interest. Luna's intrigued by this — it can only be good, though. The more hands they have on deck, the likelier they are to finally get somewhere.

"I'll let you know what I find," Luna tells them, uncharacteristically serious. She, too, can tell how important this is.

"Thanks, Luna," Ginny replies, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.

Luna just nods back, already lost in whatever crazy plan her mind is concocting. Ginny wishes she could stay and help, but this isn't her place.

She and Harry have other avenues to explore anyway.

.

No matter how many times Ginny has now visited the place, Knockturn Alley always gives her the creeps. It's the Dark magic that was committed there, she knows now, years and years of it. It seeped into the stones and buildings, and even if the Ministry somehow managed to stop every little illegal thing being committed there, the taint would still linger. It's just been too long.

Of course, that doesn't mean every shop here deals in Dark magic or illegal goods. That would be ridiculous. Most of them have, however, at some point in their history, been part of some… unsavory deals.

This makes it the perfect place to try to gather information — or rather, to pose as someone looking for the kind of service their killer must provide. If they're someone who can be hired, as she and Harry think they are.

Harry's not with her, of course. He's terrible at undercover work. He can never quite manage to shut up what Hermione still calls his hero complex when he sees something unjust, and more often than not, that's exactly what undercover works calls for. Ginny loves him for it, still, because she'll never forget that those instincts are the reason she lived past eleven years old.

That doesn't make them any less inconvenient when it comes to work, though.

It takes her a few minutes to reach her destination — a bar, known for serving… all kinds of people. Mostly, this means the type of magical creatures society doesn't really approve of (werewolf prejudice, for example, isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, thanks to recent reforms, but it's still nowhere near perfect), not actual criminals, but right now, it's Ginny's best bet to start looking.

She checks her reflection one last time before — making sure her glamor spell is still firmly in place, showing her the image of a ruthless woman who looks nothing like Ginny Weasley — before going in.

Ginny makes a beeline for the bar as she enters, ordering their strongest, cheapest drink before doing her best to look her most pathetic.

With the memory of Astoria's death still lingering in her mind and the helplessness that came with being unable to protect those she had sworn to, it's not that hard — even if smothering the fiery determination to do something down into something not as obvious isn't easy.

It doesn't take too long for the bartender to start talking to her.

"Haven't seen you here in a while," he says, not quite a question. He wipes the counter slowly in front of her, and Ginny forces herself to take a maudlin sip out of her drink. It tastes as disgusting as she'd thought, and she sighs.

"Haven't had reason to be here in a while," she answers.

"That bad, huh?"

"Worse." Ginny nods, and when the bartender — Jack or John or whoever he is this week — turns his back for a moment, she vanishes her drink while pretending she drinks it. When he turns back, she loudly sets down the empty glass, and asks for a refill.

He leaves after that, and Ginny takes it as an opportunity to scan the room. Nobody's really paying her much attention, or if they are, they're good at pretending otherwise.

It takes her two more drinks, emptied in more or less the same fashion, before Tim (his current name, apparently) wanders back to her.

"Anything I can do to help?" he asks, blue eyes curious.

Ginny hums a little, fingers drumming against her empty glass. This is where it gets tricky — she can't be too obvious about her question; even if Tim's known her for years, he only trusts her to a point, and she knows enough about him to know how unwise crossing him would be. Especially so early in the investigation.

"Not unless you know how I can make somebody very, very dead without leaving a trace." She snorts, letting an amused smile play on her lips as he refills her drink again.

"Sadly, I don't think I can help you with that," Tim replies, the same amusement on his face. Something flashes across his eyes though, and for an instant, they flash to brown before settling back into blue. Ginny has to force her heart to remain steady.

Got you, she thinks, hiding a smirk into her drink.

Out loud, she sighs. "Guess I'll just have to deal then."

Tim offers her an apologetic shrug before departing. When Ginny 'finishes' her drink, she tosses a few coins on the table — more than enough to cover the cost of the alcohol, and she knows Tim well understand — and leaves.

Tim already knows how to get in touch with her if he has anything to share, after all.

.

Harry stumbles back home with takeout. He's late, and his hair is even more of a mess than usual. Ginny would blame the wind, but she's pretty sure no wind could cause such a wide grin on his face.

She snorts as she gets out some plates for them to eat on.

"How's Malfoy?"

Harry sputters. "I — What?" At Ginny's unimpressed look, he relents. "He's fine."

Ginny lets a salacious grin spread on her face. "Oh, I'm sure."

"That was terrible," Harry replies, but his own unimpressed face is betrayed by the way his lips keep twitching up.

"But true," Ginny retorts as she upends half of one of the boxes on her plate. Chinese — Harry must have stopped by Muggle London on the way back from the Ministry.

Harry's cheeks are distinctively darker as he reluctantly admits that Ginny's right.

It's a nice evening. Quiet and fun, just enough to push back the grief that seems to always fester behind Ginny's ribcage.

Still, Ginny can't help but think that it's just the calm before the storm.

.

It takes a week before Ginny hears back from Tim. She doesn't go back to that nameless pub in the meantime, but she does visit a handful of other shops in Knockturn Alley. She doesn't learn anything particularly relevant, except that she comes back from those visits with the distinct impression that the case she and Hermione had been working on goes on much deeper than they'd thought.

"Is that it?"

Sighing, Ginny bats Harry's wand away as it comes to poke at the small slip of paper an owl delivered that morning.

"Yes, Harry, that's it. And no, it's not cursed, so please stop trying to set our only lead on fire."

Harry doesn't look happy about it, but he does withdraw his wand. "It's not much," Harry replies, frowning.

Ginny bites back the urge to roll her eyes. "It's still better than nothing."

Harry doesn't say anything to that, but Ginny knows she's right.

Her eyes fall back to the letter, if it can even be called that. It's just a handful of words, really — an address, and a date.

She sighs. "Well, looks like I'll at least have some time to get ready for this thing."

The date, after all, is a week from now. She can't really fathom why whoever she's going to be meeting needs so much time, but like she's told Harry, this is their only concrete lead so far. They can hardly afford to be picky.

"Looks like," Harry echoes, and he sounds about as enthused about it as she feels.

One week. One week, and maybe they'll finally get an actual lead to follow.

.

Tim's address leads them to a warehouse in Muggle London. It's not a bad strategy, as the location does limit obvious magical intervention. Still, Ginny walks there in her borrowed skin, Harry's voice crackling in her ears — this particular spell is an invention of George, though it was inspired by Muggle listening devices.

"Don't forget," Harry's voice whispers in her ear, "if you need us to come in, just —"

"Use the code word, yes, I know," Ginny whispers back, rolling her eyes. "I'll be fine."

The door swings open loudly when Ginny pushes it, and it echoes. That's the first sign something went wrong.

The second is the smell — something sour and rotten, with entirely too much copper for Ginny not to know what it comes from. She swallows back the bile threatening to rise up her throat, her wand raised reflexively.

"Shit," she hears herself say as she goes in. She doesn't dare say anything else, much less answer Harry's suddenly concerned calls, and she keeps her ears open for anything.

But the warehouse is empty. Her Lumos shines over a bare room, and Ginny's stomach falls. By the looks of it, this place has been deserted for a while.

Well, deserted of anything living, at least.

She finds the bodies in the back. Nobody cared to hide them, but they weren't exactly left in plain sight either.

"Harry," Ginny says, raising her wand higher while her other hand comes to her ear to activate the spell, "I think you need to see this."

It's not the code word, but Ginny can barely remember it right now. Not when the corpses seem to stare back at her, their eyes empty and dead, and all of their bodies mutilated in a way that is already far more familiar than Ginny would like.

There is no doubt — whoever killed those people also killed those girls.

.

Nobody is willing to say that the case runs cold after that, but it's the truth anyhow. Malfoy doesn't get anything new from the bodies, just the same 'nothing' as before, and Ginny knows better than to return to Knockturn Alley so soon, if ever.

And definitely not using the same disguise.

All they can really do is wait for Luna to get back to them, but judging by how this case has been going so far, Ginny's not holding out much hope.

A week passes, then two, then three. Ginny has never felt this frustrated before in her life, nor this mad, and yet there is nothing she can do about it.

It sucks. A lot.

The only upside to all of this is that the lack of progress and threat against Ginny actually convinces the Department that she doesn't need the extra protection any longer.

"Finally," Ginny says when Harry tells her so. They're once again gathered in their kitchen for breakfast, but Ginny much prefers this scenario.

"Don't take —"

"My guard down," Ginny finishes, rolling her eyes as she bites her toast. "Yes, Mum, I know, I won't."

Harry glares back at her. Ginny can see that he wants to add more, but she's not really in the mood for more over-protectiveness right now, so she slurps at her tea loudly, swallows, and says, "Well, at least this way you can finally have that sleepover with Malfoy. Resolve some of that tension between you two."

Harry chokes on his tea, and Ginny grins. "Ginny!" He coughs.

Ginny smiles back innocently. "What?"

"You know what."

She sighs. "Look… You like each other." Ginny's smile turns bittersweet, and she looks down into her teacup as her vision blurs. "You shouldn't… You shouldn't throw that away. Just…" Her words stick in her throat, and she swallows. "Enjoy every day you have while you have them, okay? Nothing... Nothing lasts forever."

"Ginny…"

"Excuse me, I need to go."

Her chair groans loudly against the floor as she leaves, hurrying for the bathroom. She feels sick.

"Merlin, I thought I was past this," she whispers with a weak, humorless chuckle, splashing cold water on her face. Her hands are clenched so tight around the sink her knuckles turn as white as the porcelain she holds.

She clenches her eyes shut until red spots dance in her vision, but it doesn't help. Nothing really does when she gets like this. It feels like the grief is eating her from the inside out, and she misses Astoria like a limb.

It isn't fair — Astoria was the one who knew how to handle Ginny's panic. She had been so good, so kind when dealing with Ginny's nightmares; and in return, Ginny had done the same for hers. Being together had felt like belonging, like they were building something and moving on more than she ever had back when she'd been with Harry.

It isn't fair that she never got to keep that.

When Ginny looks up, the girl in the mirror stares back at her with red-rimmed eyes. A glamor spell later, and she looks perfectly fine again.

Even though she's not.

Even though she doesn't think she will ever be. Not truly, anyway.

.

Sleeping with her wand underneath her pillow is a habit Ginny never really grew out of.

She's glad for that now, as she barely has the time to grab it and dive off her bed before a nasty splash of light rips her bed in half, ripping through her sheets and mattress right where she'd been sleeping moments again.

Her heart kicks into overdrive and she tightens her grip around her wand, half a dozen spell on the tip of her tongue.

Her room is dark, though, and silent. Ginny can barely hear her own breathing, but even though she cannot see anyone, she knows somebody else is there.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asks the darkness.

It's a stupid question, really. Ginny doesn't really know why she asked.

Instead of a verbal answer, Ginny gets another spell cast at her, one she only just barely manages to block in time. The curse strains across her shielding, but her Protego holds.

Her assailant is attacking her non-verbally, but each spell cast gives off just enough light that Ginny can see them, see where they are, and retaliate.

Inwardly, she curses Harry for having the worst timing ever in finally manning up and going after Malfoy — she could use some back-up right about now.

Her attacker is good. Their curses are swift and silent, so strong they make Ginny's shields shake and threaten to break. They don't hesitate to move either, which speaks of more physical strength than most wizards bother with.

They're really, really good — but Ginny is better. She's no scared prostitute, no warehouse worker. She's Ginny Weasley, and she is not going down like this.

She doesn't know how long the fight goes on for. Ginny doesn't have the time to figure it out; if she wants to survive this fight, she needs to put all of her attention on it.

It doesn't help that all of this is happening in her bedroom, which isn't exactly the biggest room — even with all the newly-created openings. At least they're no longer dueling in the dark, though Ginny could do without the smoke. She wishes she could have the time to spare to actually turn the lights on, but that could be the one mistake that kills her. She's already sporting too many wounds as it is.

Her opponent isn't unscathed either, luckily, and they seem to be getting as tired as Ginny herself. Now, it's a matter of endurance, and Ginny, after years of professional Quidditch where the matches could go on for days, is very good at endurance.

In the end, Ginny can't even tell what spell of hers gets through her enemy's guard. She's cast so many they've all been blurring together.

What happens is this:

Ginny casts her spell, her assailant's hood is blown back, and Ginny knows that face.

Her heart skips a beat, hurtling painfully against her ribs, and she chokes. She can barely dodge the next curse as her knees grow weak.

"Astoria?"

Ginny doesn't recognize her own voice.

She doesn't recognize anything of the woman she loves in the cold, dead eyes either staring back at her either.

"How is this…?"

And for the first time, the spells hailed her way halt, and her attacker speaks. "Who the hell is Astoria?"

It is undeniably Astoria's own voice, though the words lack any sort of the warmth Astoria had, any trace of the emotions Astoria had always been so full of.

She sounds so confused that for a heartbeat, Ginny falters.

It is a costly mistake — when the next curse splits the air in two, she can't dodge it.

It's luck that saves her in the end — or rather, Harry. Again. The wards on their home, triggered by the fight, called him back, and he bats the spell away in midair, sending it crashing against the wall, where it starts eating through the paint.

Ginny's brain reboots, and she opens her mouth to yell at Harry to catch her, to stop her, not to hurt her (it's Astoria, it is, how is this possible?) but before she even gets the chance, Astoria's gone.

Ginny falls to her knees, panting. Belatedly, she realizes she's still in her night clothes, and she almost laughs. She just dueled her supposedly-dead ex-girlfriend in her night clothes.

Her eyes fall to Harry as her friend kneels beside her, and suddenly, she wants to cry instead, a sob building up in her throat.

"Harry," she says, helpless. "Harry, that was…" Merlin, but she can't even say it.

Harry looks grim as he answers. "Astoria. Yes, I saw it too."

And it shouldn't feel like hope. It shouldn't. Astoria didn't recognize her, she tried to kill her, and judging from the skills, she's probably responsible for all the deaths Ginny and Harry have been investigating.

This isn't the woman she loves.

(Loved.)

And yet… And yet, impossibly, it is.

How can Ginny not hope after that?

.

"So… You failed, then?"

She just nods. "I did, sir."

"I see. I trust you will do better on your next attempt?"

"... Of course, sir." She bites her lips, and the man's eyes narrow.

"Is there anything else you wish to tell me?"

She licks her lips, unsure. She doesn't know why she is unsure, why she isn't just speaking. This man… She trusts him. He made her.

"The woman. The target. Who is she?"

"Nobody you need to concern yourself about." The man's voice is cold as he answers this, but she can't help but push.

"But…" She blinks, that odd flash of a memory, of a smile and laughter and warmth like she has never known before. "Did I… Did I know her?"

The man remains silent, and her heart starts to beat faster.

Something is wrong.

Something is very, very wrong.

Finally, the man sighs. "And you were doing so well, too."

"... Sir?" Panic steals her breath, but still, she doesn't dare move. "I don't understand."

"I know," the man says. He sounds kind, and he's smiling, but it's wrong. She knows it now.

And still she doesn't move.

Why can't she move?

"It's alright," the man says, his voice still doing that awful mockery of kindness. "I can fix that."

"You…"

"Obliviate!"

…

She opens her eyes. "What is my mission?"

For some reason, that makes her handler grin. He shows her a picture — a newspaper clipping, staring a dark-haired woman, laughing at the camera. "You must kill this woman."

She nods.

"Yes, sir. I will."

* * *

So... I'm ending it here. I feel like I could probably continue and write at least a second half, and I will try to. At some point. Maybe.

(also Tim is a Metamorphmagus, mostly because I can)

Hope you guys liked this mess :p


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